Connecticut western news., 1887-06-01
A Gigantic Idol.

A~Ns~ Buddha) seems temple built for fun an enormous joke to amuse the faithful. This "Great Buddha" has only head and shoulders, at least ninety-fise feet high; he seems to be rising from the depths of the earth, with his neck stretching up like someone making a painful effort to struggle out of the ground. He alone fills all his temple, and his curling hair touches its roof.
 One reaches him, just as all the gods nre reached, by series of stairways, porticoes aud courts. From the gate of the sanctuary one cannot very we'll explain to oneself at the first glance what is that hiltock of gold, that eshapeless mass in front (the shoulders of Buddha). It is only afterward, when you look up very high, that you sec far above you the colossal gilded face, the huge fixed eyes gazing down upon you from the height of ninety feet with idlotic placid ity. Y
 ] find myself, says writer in French paper, making this pilgrimage at the same tims as a good-natured Nippon family of country people who have como 10 the holy city for the first time; and the good folks, especially the ladies, cannot get over tho idea of seeing so big god, and there are cries of "Ahp and "Oh!''-exclamations of surprise little screams and little laughs. Now, really this Buddha is just too funny, with his stork-like neck and his stupid air-funny as any of those snow men which urchins make at the corners of the streets-funny as some enormous creature made to order by little children.
 And there the little country family are all laughing light under the gods nose-laughing till the tears roll down their cheeks and tho other visitors, and even the guardian bronzes themselves, also laugh to see them laugh. Then they all look at me to see how feel about it, and have to laugh, too-- can't possibly help it. What country this Japan, where everything is oddity and contrast! Who could ever imagine that this frivolous little temple, with it's reverences and it's eternal laugh, could have lived through centuries locked up in such ferocious mystery and have given birth to those thousands of other tenn ples, with their monsters and their hob- goblins2
 By the payment of two cents one is privileged to make the round of the great Buddha- one ascends by a series of sloping plank galleries, placed at very steep angle, on which you can pass be. hind the head of .the colossus, little | above the nape of the neck. advance upon it, still accompanied by tho voyag- ing family; the sloping way is slippery, 1 old, broken through here and there, worm. eaten tho ladies very nearly fall. put out my hand to help them, and then we become good friends right away. Behind the enormous head, in dark nook. an oll bronze is squatting down. For one cent he shows us suit of .armor and war mask which once belonged to the great Taiko-Sama anl then he throws open for our benefit sundry very ancient idol closets, in which animal-headed divinities arc conserved with various relics of weird aspect. There we do not laugh any moro.
 In the court of this temple is the most monstrous of all the bells of Kioto-aI least seven, or perhaps eight yards around. It is rung by means of an enormous beam tipped with iron--a sort of batter ing ram suspended horizontally with ropes.
 For two cents extra one has tho right to experiment with it. I harness my. self to the pulling straps, circle k formed around me and children run up, Even two or three young girls come be- hind me to take hold, bothering me { great deal, pulling the wrong way hal. the time, bursting into fits of laughter The united strength of tho three il almost equal to the power of three good kittens.
 Meanwhile the battsring ram begins to yield. Gradually it begins to swing. Booml booml A sound awful, cavern ous, and prolonged into mighty orches- tral vibrations which must be heard through the whole of the sacred city.